Metro Jacksonville

Hey team,

Just some up to the minute news, OKLAHOMA IS ON FIRE. Apparently some fool in a Ford F-150, tossed a wad of burning paper into the grass. Grass in Oklahoma (in placers where dry wheat fields aren't)  this time of year is brittle dry and the color of dry hay.

A wildfire is raging east of OKC. The fire has a record hot day, it's 112 outside. The wind is calm for Oklahoma, (blowing at something less then hurricane force) and the fire east of the city is so large that I'm witnessing a rare meteorological phenomena, a cloud formation called a pyrocumulonimbus.

QuoteThe pyrocumulonimbus cloud (pyroCb) is a type of cumulus cloud formed above a source of heat such as a wildfire and may sometimes even extinguish the fire that formed it. It is the most extreme manifestation of pyrocumulus. According to the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, a pyrocumulus is "a cumulus cloud formed by a rising thermal from a fire, or enhanced by buoyant plume emissions from an industrial combustion process." Analogous to the meteorological distinction between cumulus and cumulonimbus, the pyrocumulonimbus is a fire-aided or â€"caused convective cloud but with considerable vertical development. The pyroCb reaches the upper troposphere or even lower stratosphere and may involve precipitation (although usually light), hail, lightning, extreme low-level winds, and in some cases even tornadoes. The pyroCb was named following the discovery that extreme manifestations of this pyroconvection caused direct injection of large abundances of smoke into the lower stratosphere.

Interstate 44, The Turner Turnpike OKC-TULSA is closed. I'm watching magnificent brick homes burning like petrol.

The fire has battered it's way into the suburb of Luther, OK. As I write it is moving faster then the firefighters. The houses on two sides of the new high school are smoking. Another block to the south and the entire edge of town in engulfed. I'll keep you posted...

Back in my ancestral home 'OKLAHOMA!'

OCKLAWAHA
GO POKES!

Went outside, and ash is raining down in Mustang, all the way across the city from Luther. This is like saying a huge wildfire is moving into Baldwin, and ash is raining down in the beaches.

Attempting to save a trailer house  on East Post Road in Luther. Looks like a small victory but the fire is wrapping around the location so it might be lost anyway.

Another fire is leaping the roads in the Lake Thunderbird area of Indian Meridian and Post Road, it's snowing in Mustang... ash.

You Florida kid's who have seen our eastern forest fires move from tree to tree burning UPWARDS through the entire wood you've probably never seen a fire like these on the prairie.  In our swamps the fires are incredibly difficult to get at as we've seen in the Okefenokee. Even a fast fire in Florida generally allows a fire break to be cut in front of the flames Here where a wind from 30-70 mph literally sweeps everything before it the fires move as fast as the fire trucks! Get in the way and your toast. As I write, ash is still snowing down all across Oklahoma City. Damn, where's that THUNDER when we need it?